We went last Friday for my birthday, we waltzed past the queue going round the block for Bubbledogs (still not sure what the hype is there I have to say) and went through to the back room where the team were already half way through the early evening service. I had my worries about the “tosserati” that Marina had mentioned would be surrounding us but I was pleasantly surprised by our company for the evening; everyone seemed perfectly nice, and I didn’t hear any wankery from around me.

Shrimp

Pig and Roe

Pig and Row

And the food? The food was unbelievably good, as good as anything I’ve had in London this year, or in my entire life. Highlights included the most wonderful fried bread with sole taramsalata will be with me for weeks, the tender broccoli with nuts and anchovy dressing was understated and devastating, and the venison with béarnaise sauce was rich and beautiful.

Sole

At work

Plaice

Venison

The journey that Knappet took us on was one I didn’t want to end; every course, big or small, was extradordinary, delightful and delicious. I like the set up round the kitchen, although to be honest I didn’t see that much theatre (not that I really want it), but it’s got a lovely vibe and subdued. I’m booking it again for a couple of months, knowing the menu will be different but just as excellent.

Apple

Cranberry

Blackberry

Go as soon as you can, when you’ve saved up, this is worth every penny.

As great as Roganic was, Ben’s cooking feels like it’s changed a lot since then. His Stripped Back series introduced me to a lot of interesting combinations and ingredients; there was always at least one word of each dish I hadn’t heard of but the end result was always brilliant. You really started to get the sense that Ben was starting to find his own unique take on food that you wouldn’t find elsewhere.

And so he’s landed at John Salt; half bar, half restaurant. Last week we were upstairs to attack the tasting menu but I’ll definitely be back for drinks and nibbles downstairs to work my way through the craft beer and potent cocktails.

Things started well upstairs with a refreshing cup of miso soup and a perusal of the tube map menu that consists of 8 courses. While we waited for things to kick off we were served with a selection of bread. And what a selection it was; some of the best bread I’ve ever had with an interesting range of butters, this is a course in itself.

What a bread selection

We kicked off with “Hen of the woods” which turned out to be poached and roasted mushroom with lettuce; earthy, woody (duh) and quite delicious.

Hen of the woods

The second course was the already famous “Chicken on a brick”. You are presented with a brick that has been glazed in syrup and has a topping of chicken parfait and berries. They give you cutlery but you quickly dispose of that and get down to licking. Some people may say it’s a bit of a gimic, and I suppose it is, but it’s a pretty tasty one.

Chicken on a brick

Third we have probably my favourite course of the whole evening: Macchaevelli egg. This is no more complicated than a fried egg, watermelon and parsley sauce but I can still taste it even now, so warming, so good. If you told me that egg and watermelon went together I’d be pretty surprised but it worked a treat.

Macchaevelli egg

The next course was another one that requires no cutlery, you’re presented with the scallop and kiwi sandwich drowned in cider and truffle butter. I don’t think you need to hear any more than that to get the point, do you?

Scallop sandwich

Rainbow trout with rotten mango juice was something I’d had at stripped back;. It’s a lovely blend of different flavours and textures and a great example of Ben’s cooking. He has an amazing way of taking something familiar and completely re-assembling it into something completely new and different.

Rainbow trout

I wasn’t quite so keen on the Vacherin risotto. Despite it being one of my favourite cheeses, I’m not sure it worked with the vinaigrette and duck skin. It wasn’t bad just not up to the high standard set before it.

Vacherin risotto

Final savoury course was heel of beef with kimchi; dark, rich, and spicy, I was pretty full by now and this pushed me over the edge. It was brilliant, but I was tiring and only just got through it.

Heel of beef

We finished up with fennel in absinthe, a savoury sort of pudding that lifted me out of my beef slump and gave me the energy to get home.

Absinthe fennel

John Salt was as good as I expected it to be, with Ben at the helm you wouldn’t expect anything else really, he’s got some great ideas and an eye for detail. Get your name down for a table before the 6 months fills up (which it will).

One of the reasons I kept having to cancel was that Hedone is based in Chiswick, which, while rather nice for the people of Chiswick is a long way from E2. This was destination dining, so, when I had a Friday off work, I thought I would take the chance to get over there.

As we were travelling all this way, there was little discussion before opting for the tasting menu, and what better time for a treatsy lunch than a Friday afternoon? In fact the taster is a rather reasonable £55, a lot cheaper than most, although the wine list is pretty punchy, nothing under £40, so you are looking at about a ton all in all.

Hedone is a restaurant that is a temple to food geekdom; set up by the original food blogger, Mikael Jonsson, who was blogging way before twitter, in fact he used to post on message boards back in the day and was pretty well known. I have to say I take my hat off to anyone who has the gumption to go from a food lover to actually running a kitchen, and now one with a Michelin star no less. From what I had read the thing that Mikael prizes more than anything is sourcing, if it’s not up to his incredibly high standards then it’s not going on the menu, and you can tell from everything that comes out of the kitchen.

Things started off with a few amuse bouches; one a rather delightful visual pun on a jammy dodger that turned out to be crab and apricot biscuit, which was lovely, and then a slightly less successful foam concoction that I can’t remember as well.

Amuse bouches

Amuse Bouche

First course proper was a delicately poached oyster with apple foam, that was as good as any oyster I’ve had anywhere. I’m not sure whether I could tell you how poaching changes the oyster but it was delicious nonetheless. As my better half doesn’t eat oysters she was served up the (in)famous onion and pear shavings, which some have said is sourcing taken a little too far, I mean onion and pear, really? I thought it was pretty tasty myself and loved the simplicity.

Rock oyster and Granny Smith

Cevennes onion, pear shavings

Next was a duck egg omelette, again, this doesn’t sound like much and I was interested to see what they would do for it. To be honest I was less sold on this than the onions. While I’m sure it was the finest duck egg, and the most delicious girolles, I just found the whole dish a bit bland and boring. Not bad exactly, just devoid of anything memorable or exciting.

Duck egg’s omelette

The next dish was cod, which tasted like it had been given the sous vide treatment, soft and smooth. It was served with (more) foam and beef stock. The cod was an incredible texture but again the whole dish was lacking a bit of oooomph. It only came to life when mixed with the delicious beef stock, and I couldn’t help but feeling it was lacking emotion.

Cod, potato skin emulsion, beef juice

Things really started to pick up with the next course; cuttlefish done a couple of ways, even to point of making the fish looked like pasta. It looked amazing and tasted even better, rich, dark and cooked beautifully. I’m not the biggest fan of cuttlefish but this was great.

Cuttlefish Tagliatelli with its ragu

With the next dish we really felt that Hedone was hitting it’s stride. You hardly ever see hare on a menu, it’s a notoriously hard beast to cook and an even harder one to source, but when it’s done right, man oh man is it good. Rich, luxurious, I wanted this to last forever but I think I would have exploded eventually.

Hare “a la Royale”

And finally the main event: I went for the grouse, probably one of my favourite things to eat this time of year. This was cooked to perfection and looked amazing, a generous helping of breast and leg with figs and berries, I thought it was fantastic. However, it has to be said that the one I had at Upstairs earlier this year slightly shades it. The others round the table went for the Silka deer and were very happy indeed.

Roasted breast and leg of grouse, figs, rowan berries, offal toast

Roasted Dorset Sika deer, figs, chestnuts, parasol mushrooms

The two desserts were of a similarly high standard: Lemon sorbet with meringue were typically “lemony” , but the star of the show was the passion fruit sorbet and chocolate fondant. Sweet Jesus this was good; tangy fruit and deep, dark chocolate is a mixture I’ve had before, but this was as good as it gets.

Lemon variation

Chocolate bar

So, after a slow start, Hedone showed why so many people have been raving about it, a few of these dishes were really special and stupidly decadent but I couldn’t help feeling that the whole thing was lacking a little bit of character and emotion. Don’t get me wrong the food here is pretty amazing in parts but in these recessionary times I’m getting used to food that is a bit more rough and ready and has a bit more character. I’m glad I made the trip out there though, and if you’re in the mood for something a bit special then I would happily recommend it. I do wonder how it would be doing if it set up in Fitrovia rather than Chiswick, I can imagine that we might have had another Dabbous on our hands.

When you become the “The Best Restaurant in the World” ™ this ethos is tested to its limit. It is not the sort of food that you might expect from a restaurant that can boast this sort of title. It’s devoid of the usual main stays of luxury menus around the world; where’s the scallops, the lobster, the foie gras? If you’ve decided to come to Noma purely as a tick box exercise, or another notch on the bed post of famous restaurants visited, I fear you’ll be disappointed. It’s unapologetically lacking in the glamour department, stoically seasonal and proudly local, all of which makes its rise to the summit of the world all the more incredible.

So what was it like? Well, when I visited The Fat Duck back in December, you really felt that Heston was telling you a story with each dish; that months of research and thought had gone into each one so that the story was told visually, then through smell, and finally through taste. At Noma, instead of a story, you are taken instead on a journey through an aesthetic, a country. It’s like you’ve been transported out to the woods of Denmark and the cooks are bringing you the food straight from the fields and trees and onto a plate. I won’t remember the dishes in the same way as I do The Fat Duck, what I will remember is the aesthetic.

From the moment you arrive the food is upon you, literally. What you think is a decorative flower pot is in fact hiding the first of the many things that arrive at your table, twigs made of malt juniper leaves and pine leaves served with crème fraiche. It’s a fun start to the meal and the next 45 minutes is a non-stop “attack” of little canapés ranging from a succulent blue mussel to goose liver biscuit, frozen grasshoppers and cod liver, all of it is amazing and all of it is inventive. The time flies by in a blur of flavours and smells. Food is brought out by the army of chefs working in the open kitchen, all with a smile and a genuine sense of enthusiasm and earnestness.

Edible twigs

Reindeer Moss

Pork fat and berry glaze

Blue mussel

Savoury cheese biscuit with herbs

Grilled carrots with ash and sorrel

Cod liver

Qual eggs smoked in pine

Radishes with edible “dirt”

Corn

Frozen grasshopper

After 45 minutes there’s a pause to take stock, to breath, and then the “real” meal begins. We start off with a couple palate cleanser of sorts; first up a simple arrangement of fava beans and beach herbs, fresh greenery lifted by some interesting herbs, it’s light and wholesome. Second up another salad, this time one with beets, berries and herbs. It’s a perfect example of the food at Noma. Simple, fresh, clear flavours perfectly complimenting each other.

Fava beans and beach herbs

Berrys and beets

Next we move on to a bowl of brown crab, egg yolk and herbs. Succulent crab mixing perfectly with a slow cooked yolk and another round of herbs. It might seem that these herbs are just thrown on as a garnish but from the moment you taste every dish they make a difference, add another level to the food, and the herbs used are different every time. How you keep a steady stream of freshly foraged herbs to a restaurant that uses them so extensively, and for so many dishes, I have no idea.

Brown crab, egg yolk and herbs

The next dish is one I will remember for a long time and is one of the dishes that made the restaurant famous: a steak tartar with herbs, white onions and sorrel. This has been painstakingly assembled by hand and you are in turn told that it should be consumed with the hands. You pick little parcels up in the fingers and you wish it was double the size, the highest quality meat, delicate flavours and a sumptuous texture, amazing stuff!

Beef tartare, herbs, and white onion

Next up another vegetarian dish, cauliflower, pine cream and horseradish. The cauliflower slow cooked mingling with the woody flavours of the pine and cut through with the biting flavours of the horseradish, 3 flavours in perfect unison.

Cauliflower, pine and horseradish

We had a bit more fish to follow, one I’ve never had before: pike perch with cabbage and dill. This was soft, silky and tender, the dill flavouring was the star really bringing out the flavour in the fish.

Pike perch and cabbage Verbena and dill

Our penultimate savoury course is another famous Noma dish and one that again might surprise the more higher end clients. A hot skillet is brought out with various ingredients, including an egg, hay oil and a timer. Instructions are to crack the egg into the skillet, let it fry in the oil for just over a minute and then add the other ingredients. The result is the most warming and lovely dish; rich egg yolk mixed with lovage, potato and herby buttered spinach. So good.

Cooking the egg

The Hen and the Egg

And already we are at the end of the savoury food with a final fish course to finish up, a lovely slice of turbot with more herbs and nettles in a bullion sauce. A fitting end to this trip out to the woods.

Pike and herbs

It’s not over though. We are warned by the Maitre D that the Danes don’t really do “sweet” but prefer their deserts more savoury. First off something we had heard about but still surprises you when you here it: a blueberry ice cream sandwich with ants. The bitter flavour of the ant tempered by the smooth ice cream and sweet berry, amazingly it does work but probably only in unison. The second was a little more traditional; roasted pears and pinewood foam, probably the best pear I’ve had the pleasure of eating, mixing with the woody flavours of the pine and finally melting perfectly in your mouth. It was a great way to finish up.

Berry and ants

Pear and pinewood parfait

Before we paid up, one of the chefs was kind enough to give us a tour of the place. You really get a feel for how the culture of Noma goes far beyond what you see on the plate in front of you. From your table you see the open kitchen, a delicate opera that is made even more complicated by the fact that there are hardly any traditional waiters. Instead you have the chefs themselves coming out to serve you. This means that the kitchen is constantly moving, chefs changing stations all the time, everyone cooking everything. It’s the food equivalent of total football, I suppose, a purists kitchen.

Prepping

Further behind the scenes is the staff canteen, a lovely place where the chefs make sure they all get together to eat once a day. The whole place is amazing really, a factory line of herbs and ingredients, and an enthusiasm emanating from everyone there. They told us that to keep the menu evolving each chef takes a turn presenting a new recipe to the team every Sunday night, which must be one of the most nerve wracking experiences in the world. It seemed like an amazing place to work and be a part of and I’m not surprised that so many alumni of Noma have gone on to do great things themselves.

Staff canteen

The herb garden (this will be gone in two days)

It was a lovely day, full of suprises, unfamiliar flavours and combinations and we had a whole lot of fun. What I love the most is that if I went back next spring the menu will probably have changed beyond recognition. So that’s what I plan to do.

But I’m back.

And to kick things off I’m reviewing a restaurant that will be familiar to all of you. It’s probably one of the most written about restaurants in London and its name is Dinner. Heston’s latest venture at the Mandarin Oriental garnered a lot of praise when it opened, despite the pretty high prices, and a year on it doesn’t look like it’s losing steam. As readers will remember I had a great time at The Fat Duck but Dinner is a different beast, more of a bistro but sprinkled with the usual Heston magic. I still hadn’t been and it seemed the perfect place for a Mother’s day lunch.

The restaurant itself is rather wonderful, a huge glass kitchen full of chefs and huge pineapples on a spit being gently roasted in the oven. Huge windows give the place a lot of light and there was a lovely buzz and hum to the place. It’s full of lovely little touches; little bookmarks with little tidbits from the history of food or a bibliography at the back of the menu. The wine list, whilst impressively weighty (if you like that sort of thing), goes north of £40 pretty quickly, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

The food itself is wonderful. Really wonderful. It is expensive, but worth saving for and eating it was a joyful experience. The famous Meat Fruit, which has been hyped to kingdom come, stood up to the praise that has been lavished on it. Softer and smoother than you can imagine and beautifully presented, I wanted to bring a tub home with me. The other stand out was the roast marrowbone with snails that had lovely, earthy flavours. Hay smoked mackerel and buttered crab loaf were both good but not up to the high standards set by the other two. All of them, however, exemplify what Dinner is about: familiar, homey cooking which have been taken to another level.

Meat Fruit

Hay Smoked Mackerel

Roast Marrowbone

Buttered Crab Loaf

One of the techniques that Heston uses to take these dishes up a level is cooking almost everything sous vide. The results of this can sometimes be incredible; meat tastes more tender than ever, nothing is lost etc etc. And with most of our mains it worked a dream. The pork chop, for example, was like nothing I’ve ever tasted, it was just perfection. As was the powdered duck breast with its smokey, spicey flavours. The chicken on the other hand, while being cooked exactly how it should be, was just too tender and moist. It tasted and felt so unfamiliar that you kept thinking it was still raw, even though it was, all in all just too weird. Pigeon just about worked but was, again, almost too tender to be believed but lovely really.

Black Foot Pork Chop

Powdered Duck Breast

Puddings are again dominated by the now world famous Tipsy Cake. This is the pudding to end all puddings; spit roasted for a gazillion hours in its own juices and served with melt in your mouth sponge. There are no words to describe this, worth the trip alone and all the other puddings pale in comparison. Although the British cheese platter is lovely too.

Cheese Plate

Tipsy Cake

Whilst easily the one of the most expensive lunches you can have in London, I would put Dinner up there with other favourite treats like River Café, Ledbury and Roganic. Book, save, go.

Well this time I’m going to break the trend and write about two restaurants I’ve been to recently that I would have liked to have photos for but due to tricky light conditions I was unable to. It’s a shame as the first restaurant in particular had some of the most wonderfully presented food I’ve had in a while. But fear not dear reader, help is at hand in the form of this blog post that amply demonstrates the beauty of the plating at Dabbous.

I suppose the other reason I have decided to write about Dabbous is that it’s the hottest ticket in town right now, and, for once, I managed to get their before the hoards descended. Apparently it’s booked up till May now, and Giles and Jay haven’t even had their reviews printed yet. I’d heard a bit of a buzz about Ollie Dabbous’ new venture thanks to my mild addiction to twitter and early reports were effusive in their praise. While some people hate the idea of Valentine’s day, for me its just another excuse to eat, so I booked us up for Tuesday the 14th.

Amazingly the place was half empty when we got there, and the bar was even emptier as we sipped on our expensive but delicious cocktails. This was quite nice, we were so ahead of the curve that there weren’t hundreds of tables for two and it could have been any night of the week really, although you couldn’t get a real read on what the atmosphere would be like when it was buzzing.

You don’t need a crowded restaurant to get a read of the food though, and all I can say is that the hype is real people. We weren’t in the mood for the full blown tasting but decided to do a bit of a mix and matching from the a la carte and just share everything. Highlights from the starters were the salad of fennel with lemon balm, which quite literally blew my mind with the dressing that was just amazingly pure and clear, and the beef tartar with cigar oil, which tasted new and familiar all at the same time. To be honest the you can’t really go wrong with anything on the menu at Dabbous but these were some of the best.

Mains were awesome too; roast goose with sweet clover kuzu and quince was such a startling array of textures it took a minute to work out if you actually liked it but then became incredibly addictive, braised veal cheek was more homely but equally seductive and the spelt that came with it was a revelation.

We only went for one pudding but the barley flour soaked in red tea almost stole the show, rich and light, all at the same time it was a sublime end to an amazingly impressive meal. Ollie’s time at Texture has obviously influenced him heavily, every dish isn’t just thought about in terms of taste but just as importantly the way it tastes. It was easily the best meal I’ve had this year and I’ll be back when the queues die down.

I wish the same could be same for my first visit to Ceviche. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to love this place and how long I’ve been waiting for it to open. Ceviche was my life in Buenos Aires, I had it at least twice a week and I never get bored of that sharp, salty flavour from the leche de tigre. It is one of my favourite foods in the world and I’d been pining for someone to set up a shop in London. I suppose this enthusiasm and expectation was unrealistic and I’m afraid Ceviche just didn’t live up to the weight of expectation.

And what frustrates me is that ceviche is so damn easy. The website states “not all ceviche is created equal” and I suppose I should have taken this as a warning. What I expected was something that looks like this:

What I got was about a tenth of this. Sure, the flavours reminded me of Buenos Aires but there should just be more of everything; more red onion, more fish, more leche de tigre, more chilli. We got a little tasting plate and ceviche should be something you can order a massive bowl of and just dig in. Just writing about it gets me angry. We tried a range of the different ceviches; the Don was the stand out and the one that most reminded me of Buenos Aires but the salmon lacked any real flavour, it needed more ginger, the sea bass was ok I suppose and the fish of the day was as well. But there just wasn’t enough of it.

It’s early days and these problems are quite fixable really, get rid of all these small plates and get some real portions in with some proper kick and you’re on to a winner. If Martin, (who seems like a lovely guy btw), ends up reading this then he should have a look at the plates at Solo Pescados or Chan Chan to set him on the right track. Then I can come back. Till then I’ll just make it myself.

Many have waxed lyrical about the tasting menu that you can get there but sadly this is now too labour intensive to do with the weekend rush so I’m going to have to save that for another (warmer) day. The drive down was actually rather enjoyable, as we crossed over into Kent the snow was still on the ground and the sun was in the sky, the perfect weather for a day trip down to the sea.

We had planned to have a little wander round Whitstable but sadly we left the house a little late and didn’t get a chance but our friends who joined us for lunch said it was lovely and they’d actually walked from Whitstable to the restaurant which had taken them a little over an hour. Seasalter is bleak, even on such a beautiful winters day, but bleak in its own unique way. The restaurant is the complete antithesis: warm, light, and friendly, the perfect place for a spot of lunch.

As we couldn’t order the tasting menu we did our best to recreate it ourselves. Starters consisted of oysters (fresh and poached), crab risotto, terrines, and very softly poached salmon. All of it was excellent. The oysters were fresh and large, and while I enjoyed the poached variety I’m of the opinion that you can do very little to improve a fresh oyster except with a squeeze of lemon, a drop of tabasco and some red wine vinaigrette.

Fresh oyster

Poached oysters with caviar

The risotto was expertly crafted; a heap of fresh meat on top of some wonderfully fragrant and tasty rice, I would have liked to have stolen a bowl all to myself but had to make do with a few bites. The purity of the crab and the texture of the risottoe made this a brilliant dish.

Crab risotto

The salmon was another revelation; poached just a smidge to give it a bit of texture but still retaining the fresh flavour from the raw meat, it came with some dill cream that was just heavenly. Another I’d have happily taken for myself.

Poached salmon

We finished of with some gorgeously meaty terrine and the home baked bread that was as good as it looks. Oh and did I mention the moreish crackling that we got started with? Yes, that too.

Pork terrine

Crackling

Mains were beautifully presented and tasted fantastic. The ray wasn’t what I was expecting at all but all the better for it. I only had one bite, as I didn’t want to share my baked cod that came in a thick, rich and creamy crab bisque sauce that was so bloody good.

Ray

Baked cod

I was beginning to fill up at this point but the most delightful palatte cleanser I’ve ever had snapped me back in to life, literally. Shot glasses filled with apple sorbet and popping candy were as fun as they were delicious and gave us renewed strength for one more little pudding.

Apple sorbet with popping candy

A slice of lemon cake finished of the meal in style. Light and fruity, it was the only desert that we could have gone for and it was magnificent.

Lemon tart

As the sun was setting on a brilliant lunch we went for a wander down the sea front, the light was fantastic and the view was beautifully desolate. And right in the middle of it all is such a delightful little pub, serving up some amazing grub for those that make the effort to come. And it really is worth the effort, if you haven’t been, you need to go.

Bleak but beautiful

decisions, decisions

I’d never been to Blueprint, but I had been to Quo Vadis, which I had remembered as a nice, if rather formal affair, that didn’t leave me gasping for another visit. Mr Lee’s arrival seemed like the right time to give it another go and I’d already read a number of glowing reviews by the time I’d walked through the door, and I was looking forward to a fun meal. We got there a little early so decided to have a drink at the bar. When asking for a cocktail menu the bartender looked me straight in the eye, and without hesitation announced “I am the menu”. A little cheesy but we rolled with it and to his credit he produced a lovely gin martini for me and a few other delightful concoctions. A good way to get started to a what turned out to be a rather boozy evening.

And the food? First thing to be ordered was the eel sandwich, which everyone had been raving about. Smoky, fleshy eel, lathered in horseradish sauce in thick white bread, it packs a real punch and I could easily have it at least once a week. Oysters weren’t up to the same standard sadly, a little on the watery side and not very fleshy, but they were only downer on what was a fantastic meal. Baked salsify with parmesan was a delight; crunchy, salty and cheesy, real comfort food. Grilled squid was just the right mixture of texture and flavour with a lovely fennel salad, another win.

Baked salsify

Oysters

Squid and fennel salad

Eel and horseradish sandwich

Chicken

Mutton

Game pie

By the time pudding came round my memory gets a little hazy, vanilla ice cream with some sort of chocolate pudding was tasty enough but the mains are what stick in the mind. By this point the man himself was doing a tour off the dining room, he seemed to know everyone in the restaurant, but he still found the time to come over and say hi, and a lovely man he is too; mad as a hatter but great fun and a great chef.

Pudding

Hazy memory

Quo Vadis is going to become a regular haunt of mine, if you’re in need of a place with delicious, affordable grub in a genial atmosphere and lots of booze then this is the place to go, you’ll probably find me at the bar.

My favourite amongst these three has to be Pitt Cue; I’d salivated over the posts of all the bloggers that they cleverly invited to the soft opening the week before opening. I’d memorized the menu and had my sights set on the famous Pickle Back (more of that later). We headed down there two days after it had opened, and because I am a total food geek and had read so much about it, I assumed the rest of London had to and that there would be a queue out the door. Luckily there wasn’t. We put our names down, and settled down at the bar for some seriously awesome bourbon cocktails. And these cocktails are seriously awesome. I don’t drink a lot of bourbon but I’m going to start, it’s sweet and smooth and is a great cocktail base. We tried as many as we could, and they were all great. Special mention has to go to the infamous Pickle Back; a shot of bourbon followed by a shot of sickly sour pickle juice. It sounds disgusting, but it was probably one of the most moreish, crack like experiences of my life, I could have had 100.

Cocktails

Oh, and did I mention the food? The meat is like nothing I’ve ever tasted; tender and juicy, delicious and sweet. I could go on forever. I’ve never eaten food that puts a smile on my face like this. The mash is smoky and burnt (in a good way), the beans are huge, the slaw is crunchy and the pickled jar of veg is manna from heaven. Oh and the battered shitake are a stroke of genius. And it’s all cheap as chips, we nearly ordered the entire menu, got pleasantly pissed on cocktails and generally had one of the best restaurant experiences I’ve had in a long time for the princely sum of £25. I plan to spend a large proportion of my life here.

Ribs

Pulled pork

Sticky Toffee

A place like this just wouldn’t work with a reservation system; primarily because it’s tiny, I mean minuscule, but that only adds to the charm. It’s open all day so if you don’t fancy a wait, get down there late on a Sunday and I bet you won’t have to hang around too long.

Next up, Meat Liquor; a slightly different beast to Pitt Cue but a lot of fun as well. A garish, cavernous place, which you can find round the back of Debenhams, here there isn’t anything as civilized as a list so you’re just going to have to get in line and wait your turn. But because it’s so big and provided you don’t turn up at a peak time you’ll be in quicker than you think. We turned up in a group of 7 on a Saturday at 3pm and we were sat down with a cocktail in hand by 3:30. It is a weird place, it has to be said, lots of seedy red lighting and faux graffiti all over the walls, you feel like you’re in a low quality horror movie. But the food here is good. Some of it is really good. The wings are the best I’ve ever had; greasy, crispy and moreish with a mysterious blue cheese dip, we were elbowing each other to get through them. The battered pickles are genius; sweet , crispy and very tasty.

Wings, Battered Pickles and Chilli Fries

The burgers are also extremely good; rare and juicy with a variety of options from the “Dead Hippie” to the original cheese burger that made the Meat Wagon so famous.

Burger time

Perfectly cooked

All this washed down by a range of cocktails that come in all shapes and sizes to fit any palette. We spent a very happy couple of hours drinking, laughing and eating and again we emerged into the twilight £25 lighter than when we walked in. If you want some trashy food in a trashy atmosphere then this is a great spot.

Last but not least the most up market of the trio; Burger and Lobster. This is fast food Mayfair style. £20 gets you a burger, a lobster or a lobster roll. As many have already pointed out £20 is a lot for a burger, it must be one of the most expensive burgers in London. Some people were still ordering them but when you’ve got places like Meat Liquor dolling them out for £9.50 I would imagine most would go for a lobster option. Although L&B operate a “we’ll phone you when the tables ready” policy and we arrived before 7, albeit in a group of 7 (suicidal on Thursday), we weren’t seated till 9:30.

*Bib Requiered*

Two and half hours is a long time to wait for anything but wait we did and thankfully the lobster was as good as we’d been led to believe. They are a decent size, grilled or steamed, with lemony butter and crispy chips. The roll isn’t half bad either; toasted brioche with all the hard work done for you, it’s not as big as the lobster but there’s argument for quality vs quantity here. We even shared a burger between us as well, you know just to see what it was like. And it was a very good burger; juicy, succulent and meaty. But worth £20? I’m not so sure when there’s such strong competition all over London.

Lobster Roll

Lobster

As with all these places I imagine a healthy proportion of the profits come from the exotic cocktails on the menu, they’re all about £9 and are helpfully set out to accompany the burger or the lobster. This was the most pricey of the three, but that’s to be expected in Mayfair and with a long wait at the bar. Still if you like lobster you won’t find it cheaper in London than you will here, just don’t come in too big a group. In fact that goes for all of these places, especially Pitt Cue. I’d advise 4 or less really. That is unless you love to queue.

So that’s your round up. 3 meals for under £90. All delicious. Surely Coren can’t argue with that, can he? I know I probably fit into the “jobless foodie neophile alkies (aka bloggers)” but I’m more than happy to wait a bit when the end result is food as good and as cheap as these three. Go to them all and see for yourself.

The dining room couldn’t look more different; lots of space and light, a very Nordic feel, a lot of wood and a splattering of important looking quotes on the wall. I’m not sure what the quotes were meant to bring exactly; I liked “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all” but thought that “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live” was a bit of a weird one to plaster all over an expensive restaurant, but each to their own.

The food itself follows on from the Nordic theme, it’s served on granite type “plates” and all of them came with rather a lot of foliage, a lot of it rather unnecessary in my opinion, some of it even unappetising, looking like it had been plucked from a Tesco’s value pack.

Another hat tip to current trends was the small plate zeitgeist; the menu offers a choice of 6, 8, or 10 course tasters or an a la carte 3 courser (which is only £5 cheaper than the six but has more sizeable portions). The food itself is rather hit and miss, a few dishes were very tasty but a few weren’t and the rest were just very dull. I stuck to a la carte, while my companions went for the six courser. I choose the pork and black pudding, the turbot and the white chocolate pudding, the rest of the dishes are from the tasting menu.

Things didn’t get off to a great start; I can see what the chef was going for with the raw turnip salad but I just didn’t enjoy it at all. I found the dish far too earthy and the texture was all wrong, one to avoid.

Raw Turnip Salad with chestnuts

The pork and black pudding was a lot better, probably one of my favourite dishes of the night, lots of delicious pork cooked in various different ways with a punchy celery butter underneath it made me glad that I didn’t go for the tasting menu and stuck to the a la carte.

Pork and Black Pudding, blanched celery branch, crisp skin, celery butter

The foie gras with smoked onion was a bit iffy, the foie gras didn’t really taste of much and the smoked onion tasted of too much and was far too over powering.

Roast Foie Gras, thyme sabayon, smoked onions

The venison tartar was again rather bland and didn’t really work with the hazelnut puree that came with it. All I could think of was the Raw Hereford Rib with oyster & wild watercress that I had at the Young Turks and how much better it was.

Venison Tartar, grated walnuts, wild sorrel, hazelnut puree

The John Dory was perfunctory, if again slightly dull, a nice piece of fish but not much more than that.

Roast John Dory, sweet cauliflower, cumin, cauliflower milk, brown butter

The turbot with chicken skin was an example of Aikens penchant for mixing up meat and fish and in this instance I didn’t really think it worked, the turbot was perfectly nice, meaty and well cooked but I didn’t find the chicken skin or meat particularly complimentary, if anything I found it jarring. This was a dish that had a ridiculous amount of “stuff” on the plate, and it was all too much.

Turbot, crisp chicken skin, land cress, sorrel

The final savoury course was one of the better ones; a lovely piece of lamb with breaded anchovies and ewe’s cheese, this was a mixture of flavours I can work with and they worked well although perhaps a little in danger of too much richesse.

Romney Lamb, ewe's cheese, anchovy, confit garlic

Puddings came in the form of a rather confused White Chocolate, done a gazillion ways, none of them particularly good and all a bit muddled. The beetroot sorbet on the other hand was superbly light and was a nice end to a rather disappointing meal.

White Chocolate Creme, black pepper, pepper caramel

Candied Beetroot, yoghurt parfait, sweetened beets, port syrup

Leaving Tom Aiken I had the feeling that he was trying so hard to mimic the simplicity and popularity of places like the The Ten Bells, Roganic or even Noma but that his cooking lacked their clarity and punchy flavours. A lot of this cooking was muddled, forgettable and badly thought through. There are places all over London and the UK that are doing this better and, you feel, believe in the ethos more. Sadly Tom Aikens is just a poor imitiation.